Parish demystifies the idea of prayer spaces and places

Vincenzo Semeraro leaves a written petition on an altar after a presentation on creating sacred spaces in your home, office or car. It was the first in a summer series on prayer organized by St. Dominic’s Spiritual Life Commission. (Photo by Christina Gray/Catholic San Francisco)

July 26, 2018 Christina Gray

Can your laundry room become a sacred space that helps you feel closer to God? You bet, according to the presenters of a workshop at St. Dominic Parish July 17 aimed at helping Catholics convert “places of frustration into places of solace.”

“Ways of Prayer: Creating Sacred Spaces in Your Home” was the first presentation in a new Tuesday night summer series on prayer coordinated by the parish’s Spiritual Life Commission. Later workshops will look at the rosary, the Liturgy of the Hours, adoration prayer, contemplative prayer and even prayer expressed through art, music and dance.

“How do we transfer wherever we are, at home, at work, our car or this room and transform it into a sacred space where we are aware of the presence of God?” said commission chair Dan Wandress in introducing co–presenters Kathy Folan and Elizabeth Skelton.

Folan is director of family and youth ministries; Skelton is a founding member of St. Dominic’s Friends in Christ group and founding member of the St. Dominic Art Guild.

Folan retold a story shared by Lisa Hendy, founding editor of CatholicMom.com who found doing laundry purgatorial. Obvious reasons for disliking doing laundry combined with less obvious ones, including a mother who was overly picky in the management of the family laundry.

“One day she (Hendy) was inspired to take a crucifix in her laundry room,” said Folan. She added pictures of Mary including one of her happily hanging laundry while a haloed baby Jesus played at her feet. Hendy kept adding to the walls of the laundry room until it became her favorite place in the house.

“Lisa said it became a place where she could offer the sacrifice of doing the laundry to Jesus, unite with his sufferings and be in a place with silence and solitude and conversation with God,” Folan said.

Even the family car can become a sacred space that holds moving prayer rituals which can enrich family life, ingrain Catholic prayers and practices and relieve the stress of hours on the road, Folan said.

When her three children were young, family outings in the car began with a consistent ritual: The Sign of the Cross and recitation of the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be. In silence each child was asked to review their last 24 hours in an examination of conscience, followed by an expression of gratitude and a prayer petition for something or someone.

Folan underscored her presentation which included personal images of sacred spaces she has curated in her own home and those of her friends with a quote from St. Teresa of Avila:

“Don’t think that if you had a great deal of time you would spend more of it in prayer. Get rid of that idea. God gives more in a moment than in a long period of time, for his actions are not measured by time at all. Know that even when you are in the kitchen, our Lord is moving among the pots and pans.”